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15   A sterile landscape covers the ore — there is as good      as the best, for all the forbidding appearance;
There is the mine, there are the miners;
The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish'd;      the hammers-men are at hand with their tongs      and hammers;
What always served and always serves, is at hand.
16  Than this nothing has better served — it has served      all:
Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek,      and long ere the Greek:
Served in building the buildings that last longer than      any;
Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient      Hindostanee;
Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi — served      those whose relics remain in Central America;
Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with un-     hewn pillars, and the druids;
Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the      snow-cover'd hills of Scandinavia;
Served those who, time out of mind, made on the      granite walls rough sketches of the sun, moon,      stars, ships, ocean-waves;
Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths —      served the pastoral tribes and nomads;
Served the long, long distant Kelt — served the hardy      pirates of the Baltic;
Served before any of those, the venerable and harm-     less men of Ethiopia;
Served the making of helms for the galleys of plea-     sure, and the making of those for war;
Served all great works on land, and all great works on      the sea;
For the mediæval ages, and before the mediæval ages;
Served not the living only, then as now, but served the      dead.